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Some Nineteenth Century Scotsmen (Thoemmes Press - Thoemmes Library of British Philosophers)
Some Nineteenth Century Scotsmen - Thoemmes Press - Thoemmes Library of British Philosophers Author:William Knight Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: WILLIAM HENDERSON 1810-1872 William Henderson, son of a Sheriff-Substitute at Caithness, educated in classics at Edinburgh, and afterwards in medicine ther... more »e, and at Paris Vienna and Berlin, was Professor of Pathology in the University of Edinburgh, the chair of which he adorned for twenty-seven years. He was a real discoverer in his special department, especially in diseases of the heart and arteries. He contributed much to the knowledge of aneurism; and, in the diagnosis and treatment of fevers, he was the first in Britain to signalise and to deal with the difference between typhus and typhoid or relapsing fever. He was eminently learned. His command of foreign languages, and his being able to follow the researches, discussions, and discoveries of French and German specialists, was of immense service to him. His somewhat sudden adoption of the principles of Homeopathy alienated from him many of his former friends, and medical colleagues ; but, with scarce an exception, they regarded him as the best physician in Edinburgh in the diagnosis of disease. They sought his services to tell them what was wrong in obscure and baffling cases, although theydid not always follow his modes of cure. It should be remembered that he was one of the first in Britain to make use of the microscope in pathological study. It would be more than irrelevant for me to speak of the controversy to which his conversion to the theory and the practice of Homeopathy gave rise, and of the consequent alienation of old and valued friends ; suffice it to say that, while Henderson sought to avoid controversy, he carried it on—when compelled to do so—with calm dignity and a right-minded sense of what he owed to truth and justice, in a matter affecting the well-being of the race, with no regard to himself o...« less